Passion, Strength, Power, Victory - the Tale of Two Sith
by DarthFeral
Summary: Darth Reinus (RHEH-noos) is caught in the crossfire of a spat between his master Lady Aalia Trioné, a Sith of the Cyntian Order, and Darth Vader himself. When Vader uses the Death Star to blow up a planet Reinus is on, he is rescued just in time by a young woman who calls herself Talite (tah-LEE-teh). Who is this mysterious girl? What are her plans? What will happen to them both?
1. Fall of the Master

Inside the planet's core, a team of mechanics was hard at work on the new weapon commissioned by Lady Aalia Trioné. The dark lady herself would be arriving soon to inspect progress. She was to bring her new apprentice, a young man who called himself Darth Reinus. He was to oversee construction after Lady Aalia had left, and protect the base from intruders.

"At any cost, Reinus," she had told him, "Any cost, do you hear me?"

He had nodded in reply and returned his attention to the navi-computer. And his attention had remained on the computer throughout most of the hyperspace journey. Now, his gaze wandered a little, landing on his master, Lady Aalia. She insisted on him calling her 'master'. Never 'mistress', as she said it brought to mind images of a housewife. And a Sith lady was no housewife. She was a princess of darkness, a powerful force to be reckoned with. Darth Reinus's master always referred to herself and other Sith as princes and princesses of darkness, who were ruled over by the Emperor of darkness himself, Darth Sidious.

Aalia Trioné looked up to, and respected Sidious.

Darth Reinus imagined himself in Sidious's place.

But right now, he wasn't thinking about becoming Emperor. He was thinking about something quite different.

 _The Twi'leks are a beautiful species,_ he said to himself, inside his mind, _and Aalia is no exception._

Indeed, Lady Aalia was a sight to behold, and even though she was getting on in years, she had not yet lost her radiance.

She felt Reinus's gaze on her back as she fiddled with a problematic panel on the control system, and wheeled around to glare at him before returning to the panel - the buttons were sticking, and she could not figure out the reason for the dysfunction.

Darth Reinus looked away sheepishly, back at the navi-computer. Something was wrong. The hyperdrive generator was malfunctioning. They could drop out of hyperspace at any random point now. To avoid that, they would have to take a risk and come out of lightspeed before that happened.

He relayed the information to his master, and she muttered a Twi'lek curse under her breath.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" she said in Basic, "Get us out of hyperspace!"

"Yes, master," Reinus said, avoiding Aalia's gaze, "I'll do my best."

Just then, there was a jolt, and without warning, the ship slammed to a halt. They had dropped.

"Give me a heads up next time you are going to do something like that!" Lady Aalia gasped, putting her hand to her head, "I am quite dizzy."

Reinus swore softly.

"It wasn't me, master," he said, wiping the perspiration from his brow, "the hyperdrive generator shut down earlier than I thought it would."

Aalia pushed him out of his seat and sat down to examine the readout. She obviously didn't like what she saw.

"That drop had nothing to do with the hyperdrive generator!" she hissed, gesturing at the screen, "Look! A ship's tractor beam is pulling us in!"

Reinus looked at the readout and did a double take.

"We are being pulled in by another imperial ship?" he asked incredulously, "Why would they do that?"

Aalia's answer was simple. Only one word: "Vader."

"Vader?" Reinus asked, "Like, Darth Sidious's apprentice, or another Vader?"

"There is no other Vader," Lady Aalia said impatiently, "There is only the one. And let us just say that he and I are not on the friendliest terms."

Darth Reinus sighed. Quite a few Sith weren't on friendly terms, he had learnt that from experience. And when Sith weren't on friendly terms, they often threatened to destroy each other, and that could sometimes get rather hairy. Reinus preferred to stay out of Sith quarrels when he could, but when Lady Aalia was involved, they were hard to avoid.

A spat with Darth Vader sounded like very bad news, and Reinus disloyally wished he was already at The Base instead of here. Protecting a remote planet in the Unknown Regions had to be better than getting into a fight with one of the most powerful Sith in the galaxy.

Lady Aalia, however, was excited at the prospect of an altercation. She hadn't fought anyone in years - the last time had been when she and her previous apprentice - a promising young girl called Lyria - had been tasked with destroying a small band of resistance Jedi hiding in the outer rim. They hadn't gone down easily. Lyria's right arm was entirely crushed under a metal block thrown by one of the Jedi, so Aalia had to continue the mission alone, slaughtering every last one of her enemies before coming back to free Lyria. The girl's arm was replaced with a cybernetic one, and she fought as well as before, but died on a mission given to her by Lady Aalia. That was a great tragedy for the dark lady, since Lyria had been not only an apprentice, but a daughter to her. And she - the only mother the orphan Lyria had ever known - had failed as a mother, leader, and protector.

But she tried not to think about that as their small ship entered the airlock. Instead, Aalia envisioned her iminent battle with Vader. He might kill her, she knew, but she was excited all the same.

"This is the day I defeat Darth Vader," she breathed, "this is the day I show the Emperor that I alone am worthy of his direct guidance."

Reinus raised an eyebrow.

"You aren't anyone's apprentice anymore, master," he told her, "you killed your own master, remember?"

Aalia made a growling sound deep in her throat. She didn't like forgetting things.

"So I did," she said wistfully, "so I did. For a moment, though, I felt as if I became the ambitious youngling I once was, aspiring to take Vader's place as the Emperor's apprentice."

She shook her head mournfully.

"Alas, that dream never was made reality." she continued, a hard note entering her voice, "But today, when I finally destroy Vader, it will be as close as I get to making my dreams come true."

Aalia was fixated on winning Sidious's approval. Darth Reinus did not think that attempting to kill the Emperor's apprentice was the best way to go about. In fact, it was probably the worst idea Lady Aalia had ever come up with, and as Reinus saw it, that was definitely saying something. His master was the empress of bad ideas, in his eyes. You didn't just have to be powerful in the Force and skilled in combat to be a successful Sith. You also had to think ahead, and try to envision the consequences of a plan. That was something Lady Aalia either would not, or could not do, as most of her plans ended in disaster.

Reinus voiced some of his concerns as Aalia prepared to disembark, but she waved her hand at him, and suddenly his lips were sealed shut.

"Ah-tut-tut," she cut in, "by defeating Vader, I prove to the Emperor that I am much stronger and more powerful. Also, since when did any of my plans fail, my apprentice?"

Darth Reinus, aware that his master was taunting him by asking him a question while his lips were force-clamped, followed Aalia dejectedly down the ramp.

 _Your plan from three years ago,_ he thought furiously at her, _definitely succeeded - if your whole objective was to get Lyria killed!_

Lady Aalia wheeled on him savagely.

"You are not to speak – well, think – of Lyria and her mission," she broke off, fighting back tears, "with such disrespect! Lyria was like my daughter. Do you think that I do not kill myself every day with thoughts of how it was my fault? Do you think that I do not curse myself for my own stupidity in sending my little girl off without me?" A sob leapt from Aalia's mouth, and she clamped it shut quickly. Carefully opening it again, she continued, "I raised her for fourteen years, Reinus, ever since I found her as a little child. I sensed the darkness already in her, even at such a young age, because she was an orphan. She had lost her family. She was afraid, she wanted the bad guys to go 'poof!' and disappear – her words, not mine – and so I took her under my wing. I was her mother, if you like. I did everything I could to ensure she knew who she was, what side she was on, and how much I loved her. But then I sent her off on that stupid mission – and she was only eighteen! And because of me, she is dead. So do not ever disrespect her or me. I do not need yet another reminder of how much I have failed."

Reinus's jaw, released from the force-spell, dropped. This type of lecture - this type of extremely emotional lecture - was not what he had expected from his master.

Lady Aalia was crying now, even as she tried her best to control herself. Holding her emotions at bay seemed only to make it worse, and soon she collapsed, overwhelmed, to the ramp, sobbing her heart out for her beloved Lyria.

Darth Reinus, abandoning his hateful nature for once, rushed to his master's side and put his arms around her. She brushed him off at first, but then succumbed to his embrace. Reinus held her for what seemed an impossibly long time, as she wept into his shoulder. He was gently rocking her back and forth when he became aware of the breathing sound, and looking up, he saw Darth Vader himself standing at the bottom of the ramp.

"How… touching," the Sith lord said dryly, "the apprentice comforting the master."

Aalia hiccupped, made an extra effort, and finally succeeded in bringing her tears to a standstill.

"Impeccable timing, Lord Vader," she hissed sarcastically, extricating herself from her apprentice's grasp and getting to her feet. "You are becoming predictable, no?"

Darth Vader laughed. It was a harsh, grating sound; Reinus found it unpleasant, to say the least.

"Back off, Vader," he warned, igniting his saber, "my master is in no position to fight you right now. I will not challenge you, but I would die protecting Aalia, should it come to that."

The Sith lord laughed again.

"I will not back off," he said sharply, igniting his own red lightsaber, "it is you who should step aside, Cai Tireshan. I have no time for a false Sith's apprentice."

Darth Reinus's rage ballooned immensely.

"First of all," he growled, "that name is no longer mine. Cai Tireshan has died, along with the rest of the light in me, and I am now Darth Reinus, sower of hatred, kindler of the flame of darkness. Second…"

But Vader cut him off.

"How can you give yourself the title 'Darth' when you are not even a true Sith? You have not earned the right."

Aalia could sense Reinus's anger and hatred for Darth Vader growing by the second, and while she usually encouraged such emotions in her apprentice, now was not the time, place, or person for them.

"Reinus, stand down," she ordered, "this is a simply personal matter between myself and Lord Vader."

Both their lightsabers hissed, hers extending from its hilt, his retracting.

"Personal matter?" Vader barked out another laugh, making Darth Reinus wish he could cut the Sith lord's head off, if only to shut him up.

"Personal matter?" Vader said again, shaking his head in disbelief, "You, Lady Aalia, and all you… Cyntian Sith," he took another deep, annoyingly loud breath, "well, you've committed treason against the empire! By disobeying the Rule of Two, the rule Darth Bane put in place, never to be broken, you distanced yourself from the Sith order. You shall never be true Sith."

Aalia growled.

"Damn you, Vader." she snapped, flicking her lightsaber at him half-heartedly. He dodged. "You're living in the past. Emperor Sidious has already accepted the Cyntian order, as you should also."

Reinus sighed in exasperation, hoping that this wouldn't be yet another boring verbal battle with random lightsaber clashes sprinkled in between.

Vader, as if hearing Darth Reinus's thoughts, let out an aggravated growl.

"Can it, 'lia," he retorted, using the nickname he knew would make her the angriest. "Can't you see that your apprentice is itching to see a real battle?" He spun his lightsaber casually in one hand, the blade creating a circular, disc-like afterimage. The red blur burned into Reinus's retinas, and he forced himself to turn away.

"What do you say, darling?" Vader continued, "Fancy a dance with death?"

The dark lady's lekku twitched irritably.

"My name," she breathed, her voice dangerously soft and low, "is AALIA TRIONÉ, and I am NOT your darling!"

Then she lunged, her blade curving a deadly arc toward Darth Vader's forehead. It was a fatal hit, impossible to block… except it wasn't, and the Sith lord parried the strike as easily as he would brush off an annoying insect.

His own blow came out of nowhere, as far as Reinus could see. Aalia was focussed on her opponent's lightsaber, so was unprepared when Vader's fist came at her from the other side, connecting with her head cover, generating a metallic clang.

He roared in outrage, pulling his hand back and staring at his now bent, broken, deformed bionic fingers underneath his glove.

Aalia, though reeling and shaken, managed a laugh.

"It isn't fabric," she giggled, slurring a little, "It's that extremely strong metal, made to look like fabric!"

Reinus could almost hear Vader's raised eyebrow.

"'That extremely strong metal'?" he chuckled, "What extremely strong metal?"

He shook out his hand, then growled at it when it still didn't go back into shape.

"Can't 'member," Aalia slurred, tilting sideways, "But I don't understand why it didn't protect my head from that hit…"

She stumbled into Darth Reinus and he braced himself against her weight before setting her back on her feet, where she promptly collapsed onto him again. Her lekku touched and twitched, and Reinus translated the Twi'leki easily - "I'm faking. Hold me up."

He did as she had said, and feigned concern as she slumped further into his arms, her head lolling sideways.

He deactivated her lightsaber before she could cut him into pieces by accident, and dragged her up the ramp a little.

"Let us go, Vader," he pleaded, "If you have even an ounce of honour in you, you won't continue the fight. Just let us go."

Then he leaned down to mutter into Aalia's ear, pretending to try and reassure her, while really making a sarcastic joke.

"This is just an excuse for you to let me hold you again, isn't it?" he mumbled, not without humour.

Aalia's lekku didn't move in reply, but Reinus understood why.

 _Even twi'leks can't communicate while unconscious!_ he thought, impressed, _If Lady Aalia moves her lekku, it may tip Vader off that she's faking. Smart woman!_

Vader, however, continued his advance, unperturbed by his opponent's apparent loss of consciousness.

"Ah, but you see, the thing is…" he broke off to take in a few deep breaths for emphasis, "I. Don't. Care!"

And on the last word, he lifted his hand up and started to force-choke Aalia.

It was by no means quick or painless; she suffered all the way to the end.

Her last thought was of Lyria - _I'll be joining you soon, my darling._

Then her world went black forever.

* * *

 **A/N** I don't just write fanfiction. I also post on FictionPress, and I'd love it if someone read my original story, Dreamer. Type in the link to FictionPress, and then type _/s/3326618/1/Dreamer_ after it.


	2. A New Mission

**A/N** \- this chapter is a little under three quarters of the length of the first, but I felt like it was finished, so here it is - the story is no longer postponed! Enjoy chapter 2!

* * *

Darth Reinus unleashed a primal scream, raw with pain, fury, and grief. Lady Aalia was dead. Lady Aalia had been killed by Darth Vader.

"I hate you!" Reinus shrieked, and the phrase stirred long-forgotten events within Vader's mind. Painful memories of burning, suffering, dying, but then being reborn. It was the pain of the past that had shaped him into who he was today.

"That is extremely obvious, young Cai," he spat back at the Cyntian apprentice, "and I suppose I would be right in guessing that you want me dead now. But don't try, or I will kill you just as I killed your master. However, apart from that, I see no reason not to let you go. You are no threat to me."

Reinus didn't move. He held Aalia in his arms, eyes blazing with anger.

Vader turned and started to walk away, then stopped.

"Get out of my sight," he hissed, "before I change my mind."

This time, Reinus fled up the ramp, dragging the body of his master with him. The door to the control room could be heard slamming behind him before the ramp closed and the ship prepared to take off.

And as the engines engaged, and the craft shot off into the black of space, Darth Vader allowed himself a smile behind his mask. Reinus did not know it yet, but this was far from over.

Inputting coordinates and checking the automatically plotted course, Darth Reinus hit button after button. Leaving Aalia in the control room, he opened the door that led through to the cockpit - a room long disused because of the Cyntian order's growing dependence on technology.

I can do this, he told himself, I can do this.

Reinus had only ever flown in simulations, but he thought himself a rather good pilot. His top score amongst the flight cadets had shown as much, though that had been a number of years ago, and the record had since been broken multiple times by new girl and natural talent Zantie Arcani, granddaughter of none other than the famous Lady Cyntia Arcani, founder of the Cyntian Sith Order. Reinus hated the brat with a passion.

Thinking of her now fueled his anger, which in turn fueled his desire to do what he and his master had set out to do in the first place.

Darth Reinus settled himself into the pilot's seat, then looked at the empty chair beside him. He sighed, then shook his head and stared determinedly out the front window into the blue of hyperspace. Even without a co-pilot, he was going to do it. He was going to make it, and once the Weapon was completed, he would use it to blow Vader, Sidious, and their precious little Empire into smithereens.

Not far from the planet in which the Weapon was being constructed, the planet Tiran orbited twin stars Cetar and Detar. It was a peaceful scene, though somewhere on the night-time side of Tiran, one young lady's sleep was far from peaceful.

Talite dreamt of fire, destruction, an entire world exploding before her eyes. She was a little girl again, watching wide-eyed from the window of a spaceship as her home, her family - her life! - went up in flames.

"Mama!" she screamed, "Papa!"

Then, quieter, "Ryan… Anir…"

Quieter still, "'Shara…"

All at once, the scene changed but left the hopeless feeling behind as she watched this new event unfold in flashes.

A black mask - Vader's mask!

A black-gloved hand, reaching out in a choking gesture.

A blue-skinned Twi'lek lifted out of a young man's arms, clawing at her throat in desperation.

A flash of a limp blue arm, hanging over the edge of a ship's ramp.

The young man's scream of "I hate you!"...

Talite woke in a cold sweat, tears in her eyes and the echo of her own scream still bouncing around the room.

She breathed a name, the name of her former master. Then, exhausted, she fell asleep again, only to find a new horror awaiting her.

This dream was not like the others. They had been vivid, and this was blurred around the edges. She saw a small moon approaching an unfamiliar planet - no, not a moon at all but a large battle station! From the small circular indentation which she had first assumed to be a crater, a plasma cannon could be seen powering up.

Suddenly, it fired a bright beam of crackling energy straight at the planet, which exploded in a burst of light, leaving nothing behind but a field of asteroids.

Her vision started reversing through the previous scenes, like a recorded holo-show on rewind. The planet re-formed itself, the powerful plasma cannon blast retracted back into the station, and the station itself sped away and was lost in the darkness. The vision jumped, and Talite saw the young man from her earlier vision sitting in the pilot seat of his ship. The co-pilot's seat was empty, and she felt a pang of sorrow. Then the ship came out of hyperspace, and with a great sense of foreboding, Talite recognised the planet they were headed for as the same one that was to be destroyed mere moments later.

Waking with terror in her heart, she knew immediately what she had to do.

Using the Force, she tried to levitate her old lightsaber off its stand and over to her. The piece of metal shivered, bounced a few times, and fell to the floor with a clatter. Talite groaned and slapped a palm to her forehead.

 _I am_ so _out of practice,_ she thought disconsolately, and tried again, to little effect.

Giving up, she cursed herself for wasting time and got out of bed. Snatching up the lightsaber, she sprinted through the kitchen, grabbing the emergency pack on her way and almost skidding out the front door. She clipped her saber to the underside of the pack, and ignoring the blistering heat from the dawning suns, she vaulted onto her speeder and barrelled along the highway. The speedometer never dropped below 500, all the way to the shipyard.

"Six… oh… two!" Talite panted to the security droid, breathless from her dash through the expanse of Hangar A-12 after parking and locking her speeder outside. "Really, really quickly!" she added as an afterthought.

"Madam," the droid replied calmly, "ship six-oh-two is still under maintenance, and may well be unsafe for flight. I advise you to-"

"DO I LOOK LIKE I GIVE A KARK ABOUT THAT!?" she shrieked, cutting the droid off. She tried to storm past it toward her ship, but it put out an arm and stopped her.

"This is a restricted area," it stated. "You must have ID. Where is your ID card?"

"Oh, of course!" Talite replied, an idea coming into her head. "I do have an ID. Just let me find it…"

She made a big show of patting down her pockets with one hand, while secretly unclipping her lightsaber from the bottom of the emergency pack with the other.

"Ah, here is…" she fumbled in a pocket for an imaginary ID card, still carefully extracting the saber without being too conspicuous about it.

"No, wait, that's not it…" she drew her hand out of the pocket and started searching through another, all the while maneuvering her lightsaber into a position where she could ignite it without slicing her pack in half.

"Ah, yes, got it now…" she told the impatient droid. She pressed the button on the saber and the blade sprung into life with a buzz.

"Here's some ID for you!" Talite yelled and swung her hand out from behind her back. She sliced the droid's head clean off, then ran full-tilt for her ship. Safe or unsafe, she had to fly.

Reinus leant back in his chair, eyelids drooping. A sudden stab of pain behind his eyeballs made him jolt upright. He swore at the control panel.

One word came into his mind without permission - "Faster!" - and then nothing else happened. He searched his head, trying to find a reason for that particular word, but nothing presented itself. After a short while, his eyes fell shut again and he slept.

Talite maneuvered her ship's controls with extreme dexterity, or so she liked to think. The truth was, she hadn't flown anything more complicated than her speeder ever since she crash-landed her ship on Tiran. Adopting a new identity and trying to settle into the Tiranian lifestyle, Talite had commissioned her ship to be repaired and then hadn't looked at it again for three years. So, truth be told, she wasn't as good as she had once been.

 _Wait…_

A suspicious thought entered her head.

 _It's been three years, and that droid said the ship was still under maintenance… it can't've taken that long - could it?_

She ran a safety check on all the components, and came up negative for problems. All ship's programs and digital working also drew a blank when checked for errors, so Talite pushed suspicion from her mind and plotted a course for… where, though? She hadn't thought about that.

"Damnit!" she said aloud, cursing her misfortune.

Then she decided to let the Force guide her, which would be good practice, since she hadn't opened herself to the Force for, what, three years?

 _That is a long time!_ She thought, chuckling a little before emptying her mind of everything but her goal - her ambition.

Closing her eyes, Talite took a deep breath and let it out with a whoosh. She focussed on her destination, and a clear image of the planet came into her mind. Fear started to creep in around the edges of the picture; she welcomed it, letting it focus her mind further and send the needed adrenaline into her bloodstream. Reaching her hand in front of her, she let her fingers press the keys she felt drawn to, and then opened her eyes to see what she had typed in. The co-ordinates were there, and when she ran a search, an image came up which she confirmed as the correct planet.

 _Well, that was easy,_ she thought, and let the ship's computer figure out the hyperspace route before pulling the lever and watching as the stars stretched into pinstripes in the sky. She was on her way. On her way to save her master's new apprentice, who, in her opinion, did look rather dashing, at least from what she had seen in her dreams…

Her head nodded once, twice, and then dropped to her chest in surrender to sleep.


	3. Story postponed

I'm sorry, but this story has been postponed. I realise that I haven't updated in a while, and I hope to continue it later, but until then, there will be no more updates.

Thanks

Darth Feral


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